Smoky Mountains History: Dutch, Harvey and Luther make Camp

Another Smoky Mountains history entry from the journal of Dutch Roth, recounting a long Smoky Mountains hike taken in 1931 by Dutch and his friends Harvey Broome and Luther Greene on Hughes Ridge, which is known as Pecks Corner nowdays.

HUGHES RIDGE FROM GREENBRIER
“This experience was not unusual in 1931. We were willing to pay the price of two days of strenuous hiking in seeking new places. We met at 6 a.m. Saturday morning, July 25, on West Church Avenue. We had our heavy packs filled with food for five meals and camping equipment for a night in the open.

“We drove into Greenbrier and started hiking. This hike would not have been so hard, or so long, if we had had a road between Newfound Gap and Smokemont or into Greenbrier. We spent one day hiking the eleven-mile range, a range surpassed in size only by the Balsam Mountains, longest lead adjoining the state-line divide. When we got ready to make camp for the night, we found that for our comfort and convenience, someone had camped here before us and had left a lean-to of logs. There were also plenty of logs to build a fire. We built a fire beside the lean-to and got supper. Afterward we sat around the camp fire a while before turning in. The next day we made the return trip to the cars. We went through heavy woods with many large oak and chestnut trees and little undergrowth. The beauty of the woods and the good time we had made up for the tiresome trail.

“A few years ago a log shelter was built at Hughes Ridge (also known as Pecks Corner.) Later a careless camper let his fire get out of control, and it burned the shelter down.”

I have an oagniirl letter that my grandfather wrote in 1938 on the oagniirl stationary from the Mountain View Hotel. My grandfather, George C. Harper, was an artist and traveled to Gatlinburg to do many of his etchings.